Enhancing Students' Listening Skill Through The Use of Text-to-Speech Software at The Seventh Grade of 13 Junior High School Tangerang

chandra dewi s., m.pd.; elin driana, ph.d; prof.dr.h. gunwan suryoputro, m.hum;

This thesis is a classroom action research which was conducted to enhance the
students’ listening skill through the use of TTS software which was used as an
alternative learning media to make the instruction more interesting and enjoyable.
The study aims to find out whether the use of TTS software can enhance the
students’ listening or not and to examine the students’ responses to the use of TTS
software in the instruction. The method used was a classroom action research.. The quantitative data came from pre-cycle test, post test 1, and post test 2. Meanwhile, the qualitative data came from observation and questionnaire which were conducted by the researcher and his collaborator during the instruction. The target group was the seventh-grade students at 13 Juniot High School of Tangerang City, which consisted of 20 girls and 16 boys. The study was conducted in two cycles. The first cycle discussed the descriptive texts, related to place, people animals, or things, and the listening skills of searching for main idea and detailed information. In the first cycle, the learning activities were based on scientific approach: observing, questioning, collecting information, reasoning, and communicating. Collaborating, questioning, and practicing were applied to promote the active teaching and learning activities in the classroom. The second cycle was conducted based on the
reflection of the first cycle. The learning activities were improved such as giving more simple examples of finding general idea and detailed information of descriptive texts related to place, people animals or things. Furthermore, in the second cycle, the students’ seats were rearranged, the listening texts were reproduced with better quality, the unfaniliar words, particularly the Indonesian words, were repeated, assignments of changing written texts to voiced text were given and motivation strategies (rewarding and praising) were used to create a good atmosphere and to promote the use of English in the instruction.